A few days ago Dw was out with most of the kids.

Left at home was Liberty, Elijah, Ruby and myself.

I wanted to go for a walk and thought it would be especially fun to walk all the way to a Frozen Yogurt store I had seen.

Ya’ know, “Let’s make a memory.”

I threw Ruby’s seizure kit in the bottom of the stroller and off we went.

It was a perfect Phoenix evening…warm, sunny and beautiful.

Not long into the walk, I realized that it was actually a little later than I had thought and the sun was setting quickly.  Hmmm.

Did you ever notice when you need it to be light a little longer, the sun seems to sink even faster?

It took us much longer than I thought to get to the Frozen Yogurt shop…and by the time we reached it, it was dark out.

Really dark.

Ugh.

I love Phoenix, truly I do.  I also really love the area of the city we have recently moved to, but I would be a silly ninny to pretend that this is not Phoenix and that is one big safe, happy city after dark.

We went into the frozen yogurt shop and Elijah and Liberty sampled a few of the flavors.  Before long they had their little bowls and normally I would have wanted to sit down, but all I could think was that it was really dark out there.

So with dishes in hand we headed toward home.  As we reached the side street beside the plaza I looked in the return direction.  Although I would have thought there would have been some street lamps, there appeared to be none.  It was really, really dark.

While staring down the dark street, out of the shadows came a woman and man walking.  I was surprised at just how dark it was and that I had not seen them coming at all.

I stood thinking.

If I went that way it was dark and I knew that it was more of a main street with neighborhoods off of it.   Wasn’t sure that was the best idea.

I looked in the opposite direction and cars were whizzing at break neck speed.

Ugh.

What should we do?

I suddenly felt very vulnerable.  What had I been thinking in going out at near dark for a long, long walk with a fragile little one in tow, a beautiful 13 year old and a little 6 year old Ugandan hunk?  

I wanted to kick myself.  

But I figured I’d better get home where I could kick myself in the privacy of my own home.

Across the street was a third possible route.  It was through a large neighborhood, but to be quite honest, I had driven in the neighborhood once and had felt kind of uneasy.   Not sure why, but it just had not felt like a place of peace and I do believe that the Holy Spirit gives us insight into neighborhoods if we allow Him to whisper to us.

Yet, I reasoned, maybe it would be better to go through the not-so-peaceful neighborhood as it appeared to have a couple of street lights {which once we got into the neighborhood we found that most of the street lights were not working.  Swell.}  

I asked Liberty what she thought.

Honestly friends, every direction looked dark.   Really, really dark.

And none felt particularly ‘safe’.

We stood there trying to decide.  Finally, we opted to go through the huge not-so-peaceful neighborhood.  I looked at a map on my phone trying to figure out which way the winding streets would take us.  There was definitely no direct route home and it was many, many turns, several taking us straight out of the way!

We crossed the road and took off at a swift pace.  Elijah is a good walker and was keeping up great.

But in no time, we saw a man in the darkness who stood and stared at us.

Kind of creepy actually.

Then another man was sitting out drinking a beer and he was staring at us as well.

I actually thought, “What in the world?  Do only men live in this neighborhood or what?”

Soon there was another man came out of the shadows.  My heart skipped a beat.

“Okay, this is NOT working,” I remarked while coming to a full stop.

I threw Elijah on my back and turning to Liberty I said, “You push the stroller and let’s go as fast as we can.”

Liberty is a natural runner and she is fast!  She was pushing at a good clip.  And at 54, with a 6 year old on my back, I was in a stride right beside her.   The beauty of adrenalin!

Suddenly the stroller screeched to a halt!

And at that very moment an extremely tall man came out of a house nearby and slowly came toward us.

Really friends, I was trying to be brave but I was freaking out inside.

I whispered to Liberty, “Lib – Puuuuuush it fasttttt!”

For some reason the brake had halted the wheel, with no prompting from any of us and Liberty was able to release it and we took off, almost running.

We rounded another corner and in his tender little voice Elijah questioned me,

“Mommy, are you scared?”

Fair question.

But how to answer?

I thought for a second and questioned back,  “Elijah, are you scared?”

Ever so sweetly he answered me,

“Not anymore.  You’re carrying me and 
I know Jesus is right here with us.”

Out of the mouth of babes.

The second he said that, I felt a peace wash over my entire being.

Wow.

I had been so busy embracing every fear known to this silver-haired chica that I had not even stopped to pray.

I couldn’t believe the Lord had graciously used our 6 year old to gently speak truth into the situation.

My rigid body relaxed.

*sigh*

Nothing about the situation had changed, Elijah had just spoke God’s truth into it.

I prayed aloud.  Elijah and Liberty joined me.

The rest of the way home we walked {at still a good clip} in God’s promised peace.

“He will keep me in perfect peace, when my heart and mind is stayed on Him.”
Isaiah 26:3

I had allowed my heart and mind to turn to fear.

I should know better!

But how many times do we ‘forget’ what we are supposed to be doing?

I share my lesson learned so that you can skip the “freakin’ out part” and just move to the “peaceful walk home even though it’s stinkin’ dark” part.

An interesting side note:  I shared with Graham what had happened just like I told you all.  His response?  “Wow, that was really not a smart thing to do Mom.”  Ha!  He knows where we live.

Lesson learned on every front.